Antibacterial efficacy and mechanisms of action of low power atmospheric pressure cold plasma: membrane permeability, biofilm penetration and antimicrobial sensitization

Abstract

As cold plasma damages different targets in bacterial cells, it emerges as an effective strategy used alone or in combination with antimicrobial drugs to control microbial infections and prevent the selection of resistant bacterial strains.

The State of Research on Antimicrobial Activity of Cold Plasma

“…a small working surface and poor permeability. In food products, this technique may cause increased lipid oxidation, increased acidity of the product, reduced color intensity and decrease in firmness of fruits Chizoba Ekezie et al 2017). Therefore, it is necessary to conduct further research that will allow for the optimization of process parameters, explain the doubts concerning the biting mechanisms of plasma operation and promote the application of cold plasma in the industry with no negative effects on human health or the environment.…”

“…Cold plasma (CP) or nonthermal plasma (NTP) and, in particular, cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is gaining increasing scientists' interest, given the possibility of application thereof in medicine (Boudam and Moisan 2010;Isbary et al 2010;Vandamme et al 2010;Metelmann et al 2018), food industry (Afshari and Hosseini 2014;Hojnik et al 2017, Pignata et al 2017, agriculture, and environmental protection (Bogaerts and Neyts 2018;Pawłat et al 2018a;2018b;Siddique et al 2018). Many investigations have confirmed the positive effect of the plasma on the anticancer therapy (Kim et al 2009;Vandamme et al 2010), disinfection of skin wounds (Isbary et al 2010;Lademann et al 2011), surgical instruments and materials in contact with food (Boudam and Moisan 2010;Dasan et al 2017b), purification of air, water, wastewater, and sewage, as well as preservation and decontamination of food (Gallagher et al 2007;Korachi et al 2009;Pawłat 2013;Chizoba Ekezie et al 2017;Wolny-Koładka et al 2017). Such a broad spectrum of the cold plasma applications is associated with its ability to inactivate biological factors as viruses (Terrier et al 2009;Su et al 2018), bacteria (Isbary et al 2010Samoń et al 2014;Kartaschew et al 2016), spores (Deng et al 2006;Boudam and Moisan 2010), yeasts (Korachi et al 2009;Metelmann et al 2018), or fungi (Bayliss et al 2012;Panngom et al 2014;Siddique et al 2018).…”

“…Another phenomenon induced by the activity of the plasma is the change of the cell membrane potential. This leads to disturbances in the function of the protonomotoric force and, consequently, abnormal ATP synthesis and the impairment of cell metabolism and division (Brun et al 2018).…”

Plasma Medicine: A Field of Applied Redox Biology

“…Furthermore, induction of apoptosis-like processes of programmed cell death in bacteria is being discussed as a potential mechanism (49). Other physical mechanisms are currently under investigation, for instance electrostatic disruption by plasma-derived charged particles, or electroporation caused by plasma-related electric fields (49,50).…”

Evolving Technologies and Strategies for Combating Antibacterial Resistance in the Advent of the Postantibiotic Era

“…CAP and CAP‐treated liquids provide strong antimicrobial activity. In addition to this, their combination with various antimicrobial agents and antibiotics show synergistic antimicrobial activity even on MDR bacteria 183,184. Furthermore, combinatory use of CAP and antibiotics for the treatment of MDR bacteria leads to lesser minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) levels for various classes of antibiotics.…”